Shulkin said the department is reviewing its policies as well as any doctors with revoked licenses it may have hired.

The Department of Veteran Affairs for the last 15 years has allowed its local hospitals to hire doctors whose medical licenses were revoked, according to a new report.

The department has come under fire recently for hiring doctors with malpractice claims or licenses was pulled.

A 1999 federal law bans the agency from hiring doctors who have lost their license in a state.

Yet guidelines in place since 2002 tell VA hiring officials at its hospitals to give “prior consideration of all relevant facts surrounding” any discipline, USA Today reported Thursday. A doctor could also be hired if he or she had an active license in another state.

He added the goal is an 80% reduction in the VA’s 66,000 regulations, indicating nuances like the license rule have been able to get lost in the shuffle.

“I don’t know how any organization or any human being could appropriately understand and follow 66,000 policies,” he said. “If we don’t deal with these root-cause issues such as these ambiguous policies, we’re going to see problems like this just pop up over and over again.”

Beyond the furor over Schneider’s hiring, the newspaper recently found several instances in which questionable doctors were hired.

There was the psychiatrist at the an Oklahoma facility — previously disciplined for sexual misconduct — later caught having sex with a patient. Another psychiatrist in Tomah, Wis., with a history of prescription violations who was busted for overmedicating veterans with narcotics.

Congressional lawmakers from both parties have asked the VA to review its practices.

“The hiring of doctors who have had their medical licenses revoked in any state is already prohibited," a bipartisan group of 30 House members wrote to the VA on Monday. “However, it appears the laws and regulations establishing that prohibition are not being followed by VA.”